Headline: "Should Apple be concerned about the recent launch of MusicMatch Downloads? Will not having first-mover advantage on the Wintel platform hurt Apple?"
If you think you know something about computer chess but haven't read Behind Deep Blue by the man largely responsible for creating it, you need to correct your error asap. Did you know, for instance, that in 1997 Deep Blue had 480 chips running its chess program _in silicon_ with 30 rs/6000 nodes controlling them? Moore's law isn't going to let a 2 (4?) cpu PC catch up THAT fast, let alone when it's pure software.
BTW, the Fritz people make a big deal about beating deep blue in 1995. That would have been a big deal, but the program they beat was Deep Thought II ("Deep Blue Prototype"), not deep blue, a weaker program running on weaker hardware. The match was in Hong Kong where DT2 had persistent problems with their data line to the USA where DT2 was physically located.
the board probably has unlisted numbers, and I dunno that I want to harass someone who just works there. I mean, it's not like they're patent lawyers or something.
the article is about a 7500 member opt-in list. That's not spam. A spam campaign would involve more on the order of 7500 MILLION mails. All this is is charging MBAs $1000s to apply the scientific method through linear algebra to marketing.
I'm not at all convinced this is a bad thing. If this can tell them that short, spartan ads are more effective than long, graphics-heavy ones, it could probably tell them that a huge, untargetted spam campaign is a waste of money.
Sure that plays well on slashdot, but most writers looking for a typewriter-with-memory would be better served by Notepad or the Mac equivalent. (Does OSX still have TextEdit?)
How many writers know what a regular expression IS, let alone how to search with one?:)
He's talking about chinese plans to try to grow their own (non x86) chip market through protectionist policies, not about "don't try linux it will never work!!!111"
The high costs of such a two-pronged approach would make it difficult to compete. "You have to ask yourself this: is there an advantage to having a proprietary standard in your country?" he added. To adopt unique regional technologies would mean "not participating in the rest of the world because you have a proprietary standard, and not being able to inter-operate with the rest of the world. I fail to see the benefit".
Even if you didn't read the rest of the article, it's clear he's talking about "proprietary standards," which linux clearly is not.
Furthermore,
In spite of warning about some methods used to promote homegrown technology champions in Asia, the Intel boss applauded efforts to stimulate a local software industry. He said this would be an important step in the region's fight against software pirates.
Oddly (for something one link away from the Fedora main page), it has nothing to do with Fedora. Still, the Red Hat timeline under History is an interesting read, particularly for someone like me who only used relatively modern versions of Red Hat. (Starting with 5.0 in my case.)
Still wouldn't mind seeing a history of Fedora per se though. Seems like it's a more open, community-oriented Rawhide. Is that accurate?
I was skeptical, so I google'd for it and found that pretty much everyone agrees with these guys that it was Ed Murphy of the Air Force bemoaning a technician's incompetence: "If there is any way to do it wrong, he will."
So there you have it. Truth according to the Internet.:)
Incidently I'm still not sure why everyone raves about FFVII. Nostalgia seems the best explanation to me -- when it came out I could see it seeming really cool as one of the first 3d RPGs. But, I played it for the first time a few months ago and got maybe 2/3 through before deciding I was wasting my time. It doesn't have anything going for it that would make it a classic, like just for instance the RP in RPG.:P
The original Baldur's Gate dates from about the same time as FFVII and stands the test of time much better IMO. Yes, I know these are apples and oranges; I'm just pointing out that not every game is as completely obsoleted by better fx as FFVII. (And FFX, lest you FFVII fanboys think I'm singling you out unfairly.:)
I really don't think think X-2 is going to be much of a sequel though. More like a completely different game with some characters that look the same as in X. Certainly Yuna seems to have had a personality transplant along with her costume change. (GUNS???)
I'll probably get a used XBox to play SW:KOTOR [and Fable, if it ever comes out] rather than waste time on X-2.
This is Royal's what, third try at the PDA market? First there was the Da Vinci, which at $99 was priced right in 99 when the lowest-cost palm was 2 or 3 times that much, but still didn't make a very big impression. Then there was the, uh, something that made even less of a splash than the DV... Now this. Best of luck to ya, Royal, but I think it's going to be another too little, too late. If anything there's even less room in the market now for a non-MS, non-Palm pda now than in 99.
We're all familiar with a certain Redmond-based company's efforts to extort more money from corporate desktop clients with a strategy like this. But, if you read the article, Sun isn't forcing you into this if you don't think it makes sense for you:
Mr. Loiacono said Sun would continue to sell individual pieces of the server package, but that most companies would reap big savings from what he called the "happy meal" approach.
Sun's pricing strategy moves away from the common industry method that typically considers complex factors like the number of network processors, a network's storage capacity and even the size of a company's customer base. Those many variables can make it hard for any corporation to predict what its software licensing fee will be in a given quarter, Mr. Loiacono said. Sun's all-in-one pricing, he noted, gives corporate customers more predictability.
As well as evidence of how fad-driven the IT industry is. There is still no magic bullet but vendors -- and no less the press -- continue to drum up every new toy as if it were The One.
Sad that people who spend years on an MBA degree that presumably includes a course on Spotting The Obvious 101 can't, well, spot the obvious.
It's nice to see transmeta getting some press but how many times do we have to try thin clients before realizing they peaked in the early 90s and probably aren't coming back?
Most recently, the sun ray is about half the price, has cool take-your-session-anywhere technology, and last I heard isn't selling like hotcakes. So either HP knows something I don't or this is just more evidence of clueless management...
The only actual research I'm aware of on this is an FAA study from the '90s. This article is a good summary: Cell phone use isn't banned by the FAA, but by the FCC in 1991, citing "cell phones' potential to interfere with ground-to-ground cellular transmission." Another web site explains, "at altitude, a cell phone will light up multiple cell towers and may cause the system to lock up." BS? The FAA is going to do another study and they don't seem too worried about "locking up the system."
everyone bitching about how ebay/paypal/etc sucks
on
Profile of an eBay Scammer
·
· Score: 4, Informative
is apparently missing the single biggest change ebay made to prevent people like this guy from building up positive feedback:
they separated buying feedback from selling feedback. now to get +50 selling, you actually have to sell 50 items, not just buy a bunch of paperbacks and give a false address.
of course you can still get positive feedback selling cheap items but it'll take you a few days now instead of a few hours.
could ebay do more? probably. but at least they're not missing the obvious.
I guess you could call me an indie game developer who doesn't have the guts to quit his day job.
Then again, given how many indie games make the big time, maybe I'm just smart.:)
In any case, my web game, Carnage Blender has a small (I've made enough back to cover hardware costs and the odd pizza) but loyal following. It's primarily a clickfest but, I think, an entertaining one. There's far more depth to the strategic choices than is initially obvious, particularly when you start to get to the high-level spells.
We probably have one of the highest overall IQs of gaming communities that you'll find, because the admins actively discourage idiots. (As opposed to newbies, who are welcome.) Unfortunately, a lot of idiots have credit cards. Guess you can't have everything...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
so /. will stop losing comments into thin air like it did two of my replies to this article. :-|
Mac.ars has a much more thoughtful response to this.
Headline: "Should Apple be concerned about the recent launch of MusicMatch Downloads? Will not having first-mover advantage on the Wintel platform hurt Apple?"
either you're not a programmer, you STILL haven't read the article, or you're an idiot. they have NOTHING IN COMMON beyond the name "Stanford."
this isn't the same thing at all.
the "stanford bug checker" is a static source analysis program. this is something else entirely, and arguably more useful.
read rec.games.chess.computer. the search space is WAY the hell too big.
If you think you know something about computer chess but haven't read Behind Deep Blue by the man largely responsible for creating it, you need to correct your error asap. Did you know, for instance, that in 1997 Deep Blue had 480 chips running its chess program _in silicon_ with 30 rs/6000 nodes controlling them? Moore's law isn't going to let a 2 (4?) cpu PC catch up THAT fast, let alone when it's pure software.
BTW, the Fritz people make a big deal about beating deep blue in 1995. That would have been a big deal, but the program they beat was Deep Thought II ("Deep Blue Prototype"), not deep blue, a weaker program running on weaker hardware. The match was in Hong Kong where DT2 had persistent problems with their data line to the USA where DT2 was physically located.
That's almost as bad as reviewing a book titled "Linux isn't always the answer."
the board probably has unlisted numbers, and I dunno that I want to harass someone who just works there. I mean, it's not like they're patent lawyers or something.
the article is about a 7500 member opt-in list. That's not spam. A spam campaign would involve more on the order of 7500 MILLION mails. All this is is charging MBAs $1000s to apply the scientific method through linear algebra to marketing.
I'm not at all convinced this is a bad thing. If this can tell them that short, spartan ads are more effective than long, graphics-heavy ones, it could probably tell them that a huge, untargetted spam campaign is a waste of money.
Sure that plays well on slashdot, but most writers looking for a typewriter-with-memory would be better served by Notepad or the Mac equivalent. (Does OSX still have TextEdit?)
:)
How many writers know what a regular expression IS, let alone how to search with one?
But not, I think, as clever as Weird Al. :)
Furthermore,
Still wouldn't mind seeing a history of Fedora per se though. Seems like it's a more open, community-oriented Rawhide. Is that accurate?
So there you have it. Truth according to the Internet. :)
FFX is still fresh in peoples' minds.
:P
:)
Incidently I'm still not sure why everyone raves about FFVII. Nostalgia seems the best explanation to me -- when it came out I could see it seeming really cool as one of the first 3d RPGs. But, I played it for the first time a few months ago and got maybe 2/3 through before deciding I was wasting my time. It doesn't have anything going for it that would make it a classic, like just for instance the RP in RPG.
The original Baldur's Gate dates from about the same time as FFVII and stands the test of time much better IMO. Yes, I know these are apples and oranges; I'm just pointing out that not every game is as completely obsoleted by better fx as FFVII. (And FFX, lest you FFVII fanboys think I'm singling you out unfairly.
(Hollywood not withstanding...)
I really don't think think X-2 is going to be much of a sequel though. More like a completely different game with some characters that look the same as in X. Certainly Yuna seems to have had a personality transplant along with her costume change. (GUNS???)
I'll probably get a used XBox to play SW:KOTOR [and Fable, if it ever comes out] rather than waste time on X-2.
This is Royal's what, third try at the PDA market? First there was the Da Vinci, which at $99 was priced right in 99 when the lowest-cost palm was 2 or 3 times that much, but still didn't make a very big impression. Then there was the, uh, something that made even less of a splash than the DV... Now this. Best of luck to ya, Royal, but I think it's going to be another too little, too late. If anything there's even less room in the market now for a non-MS, non-Palm pda now than in 99.
As a Subscriber I got my order in before the unwashed masses! Booya!
Wait... that means I paid money for the privilege of being one of the first to pay more money. Go me.
Sad that people who spend years on an MBA degree that presumably includes a course on Spotting The Obvious 101 can't, well, spot the obvious.
Most recently, the sun ray is about half the price, has cool take-your-session-anywhere technology, and last I heard isn't selling like hotcakes. So either HP knows something I don't or this is just more evidence of clueless management...
The cable industry is already worried enough about piracy and you can't figure out why they don't want open source set top boxes? Wow.
The only actual research I'm aware of on this is an FAA study from the '90s. This article is a good summary: Cell phone use isn't banned by the FAA, but by the FCC in 1991, citing "cell phones' potential to interfere with ground-to-ground cellular transmission." Another web site explains, "at altitude, a cell phone will light up multiple cell towers and may cause the system to lock up." BS? The FAA is going to do another study and they don't seem too worried about "locking up the system."
is apparently missing the single biggest change ebay made to prevent people like this guy from building up positive feedback:
they separated buying feedback from selling feedback. now to get +50 selling, you actually have to sell 50 items, not just buy a bunch of paperbacks and give a false address.
of course you can still get positive feedback selling cheap items but it'll take you a few days now instead of a few hours.
could ebay do more? probably. but at least they're not missing the obvious.
Then again, given how many indie games make the big time, maybe I'm just smart. :)
In any case, my web game, Carnage Blender has a small (I've made enough back to cover hardware costs and the odd pizza) but loyal following. It's primarily a clickfest but, I think, an entertaining one. There's far more depth to the strategic choices than is initially obvious, particularly when you start to get to the high-level spells.
We probably have one of the highest overall IQs of gaming communities that you'll find, because the admins actively discourage idiots. (As opposed to newbies, who are welcome.) Unfortunately, a lot of idiots have credit cards. Guess you can't have everything... :-)